March 11, 2012 marks the first anniversary of that devastating quake, which triggered a monster tsunami that left many of Japan's coastal towns in ruins and sparked a nuclear disaster at the country's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. (Related photos: "The Nuclear Cleanup Struggle at Fukushima.")

The twin disasters claimed more than 19,000 lives, and thousands of victims are still unaccounted for.

"People who lost their beloved family members are still very sad," said Kimimasa Mayama, a Tokyo-based photographer who traveled around Japan taking pictures of the devastation not long afterward.

After: No Trace of Tsunami

Photograph by Toru Hanai, Reuters

A year after the Japan earthquake, a seawall in Miyako shows few traces of having been breached by a tsunami.

But it's what people can't see that may be the most worrisome legacy of the March 11 earthquake. For instance, the reactor's meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has many concerned about being exposed to radiation from contaminated food and water.

Before: Tsunami-Tossed Boat

Photograph by Kimimasa Mayama, European Pressphoto Agency

A tsunami-tossed boat tossed by giant waves lies atop a building in the city of Otsuchi in northern Japan on May 7, 2011.

The day after the earthquake struck, Mayama was in the city of Yamato documenting the destruction when a woman approached him and led him to the mangled wreck of a car where her dead daughter was trapped.

Despite the devastation around them and no help in sight, she and her husband couldn't leave, and she continued to brush the girl's hair with a comb. "I could see only the hair," Mayama said. "She said it's my daughter, it's my daughter."

The woman explained that she had approached Mayama because she wanted him to take pictures to document their loss. "I've never forgotten that," Mayama said.

One year later, Mayama said he is still searching for the woman so he can give her the photographs.

Before: Climbing the Rubble

An elderly couple climbs over debris while walking toward their house in the tsunami-devastated city of Kesennuma in northern Japan on March 14, 2011, a few days after the earthquake hit.

Mayama predicts it will be several years before some of the towns and cities affected by the disasters can return to a semblance of what they once were.

Part of the reason, he said, is that many "people can't rebuild houses or offices at the same places because they are waiting for permission from the government, which has imposed new building restrictions."

Before: Devastated City

Photograph by Nicolas Asfouri, AFP/Getty Images

Night falls on Rikuzentakata, a city destroyed by the Japan tsunami and earthquake, in a long-exposure photograph taken March 22, 2011.

Mayama said the disasters have instilled a strong mistrust among many Japanese for nuclear power experts, many of whom were vague about the extent of the damage sustained at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the accident.